


Proud

by MaryPSue



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 00:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5027518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper had just turned to leave and was in the middle of some bland goodnight when Stan interrupted him with, “It’s tonight, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Dipper blustered, backtracked. “What? Why – why would you think – I mean, what’s tonight, Grunkle Stan?”</p>
<p>Stan fixed Dipper with a piercing look. “Cut the crap, kid, I’ve been a liar for longer than you and I’m a hell of a lot better at it. It’s my -” His voice shook, and he cleared his throat, giving his chest a thump with one fist. “My last night, right?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposting some old-ish TAU fic from my [tumblr](http://marypsue.tumblr.com).

Willow had put the small but growing horde that would become the Pleiades to bed hours ago, and even Mabel and Henry had bowed out to bed before Stan finally sighed and turned off the old black-and-white movie he’d been nodding off in front of. “Welp, guess it’s time for bed.”

Dipper watched patiently as his great-uncle stretched, cracking his back, and unlocked the brakes holding his wheelchair in place. They’d moved Stan’s bedroom from the second floor to an unused office they’d found boarded up just off the old gift shop when he’d gone into the chair, but just because he was no longer navigating a flight of stairs to get to bed didn’t mean it didn’t still present a few challenges.

Stan grumbled quietly to himself as he started his chair rolling, arthritis-ridden knuckles cracking. Dipper hung back, wanting to offer him a push but knowing what a blow that would be to his great-uncle’s pride.

“This place sure got old and creaky, huh?” Stan said, apparently to no one in particular, looking around the living room.

Dipper managed to dredge up a smile from somewhere deep in his reserves. “A lot like certain people I could mention.”

Stan let out a burst of laughter that was nearly a wheeze. “Hah! Funny. Hey, if you’re just gonna be hanging around being a nuisance, make yourself useful and give me a push, huh?”

“Sure thing, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said, taking hold of the handles on Stan’s chair with a silent sigh of relief.

Dipper wasn’t sure if Stan had already fallen asleep in his chair as he wheeled his great-uncle out of the living room and down the hall, until Stan said, quietly, “This old place used to get so damn creepy at night.”

“Used to?” Dipper asked, in as joking a tone as he could muster, and Stan reached back and swatted him in the leg.

“You know what I mean, kid. This big old wreck of a place all empty and full of who knows what kinda junk, creaking and settling and freezing cold and the attic fulla noises you hope are raccoons or bats… That’s one good thing about having all you kids underfoot, no more damn raccoons nesting in the attic.”

Dipper made a noncommittal noise of agreement before snapping his fingers to open Stan’s bedroom door. He waited until his great-uncle had wheeled into the small room before asking, “Would you like some help getting into bed?”

“Like? Who  _likes_  getting hoisted around like they can’t walk on their own?”

“Grunkle Stan, you  _can’t_  walk on your own.”

Stan brushed the comment aside. “I can still manage a couple steps and you know it. It’s the ups and downs that’re killer.” He gave Dipper a look that said, clearly, that he’d like the help, though he’d never ask for it.

Dipper gave a sigh that, despite himself, came out as fond. “Come on, old man.”

It took twenty-two minutes thirty-seven seconds (Dipper didn’t mean to count, but he couldn’t keep the countdown from filling his thoughts) to get Stan up and settled into bed. Dipper had just turned to leave and was in the middle of some bland goodnight when Stan interrupted him with, “It’s tonight, isn’t it?”

Dipper blustered, backtracked. “What? Why – why would you think – I mean, what’s tonight, Grunkle Stan?”

Stan fixed Dipper with a piercing look. “Cut the crap, kid, I’ve been a liar for longer than you and I’m a hell of a lot better at it. It’s my -” His voice shook, and he cleared his throat, giving his chest a thump with one fist. “My last night, right?”

Dipper fidgeted with his bow tie. “How do – how do you know?”

Stan glanced pointedly along the bed at himself, then back up at Dipper, raising one shaggy white eyebrow. “Explains why you’ve been following me around all day with that kicked-puppy expression, too.”

“Wh- I have not been -”

“Kid,” Stan sighed, “stop talking.”

Dipper snapped his mouth shut, with a wordless, furious look at his great-uncle. Stan’s next words, though, dissolved the indignation almost instantly.

Stan didn’t have a voice that naturally lent itself to softness, but it was approaching the concept when he said, “Is it gonna hurt?”

Dipper couldn’t help a small smile as he answered, “Not as much as your arthritis.” He waited for Stan’s wheezing cackle to die away before he continued, “It’ll be quick and painless. You’ll barely even notice.”

“What, like…in my sleep?” Dipper nodded, and was surprised when Stan sounded outraged, rather than relieved. “Like an old person?”

“Grunkle Stan, you’re a hundred and seventeen.”

“And don’t feel a day over eighty! Haha - aah - ack -” Stan’s laughter dissolved into a hacking cough, and Dipper sighed, walking back over to Stan’s bed, feet never quite touching the carpet. Stan held out a hand to stop him, swallowing a few more coughs before turning a red-faced grin in Dipper’s direction.

“I’m not dying in my bed, kid. Help me up. And get my suit. If I gotta go, I’m going in style.”

In the end, they compromised, Dipper setting Stan back up in his chair in his shirt and suit jacket, but with only the ratty boxers he still favoured as pyjamas on under the quilt Dipper draped over his lap. The countdown was still nagging in the back of Dipper’s mind the whole time he helped Stan into his shirt and helped him tie his tie, but Stan insisted on doing as much as he could himself.

The floor squeaked and creaked under Stan’s wheels as Dipper pushed him down the hall, following his directions. They paused at the foot of the stairs, Stan looking up with an indescribable expression on his face.

“Do you want to go wake her up?” Dipper asked, gently, and Stan started as if someone had reached out and touched a cold finger to the back of his neck.

“What? Oh.” He stared up the stairs a little longer, before heaving a sigh. “Nah. The kiddo needs her sleep, she had a long day today.” He was silent a moment before he said, “Be an even longer one tomorrow.”

Dipper bit his lip. He didn’t want his sister to miss her one last chance to say goodbye to the man who’d been practically a father to them, but Stan had a point. And besides, Mabel would put up a fuss, would try to convince Dipper to stretch things out, when he knew – and, he thought, Stan knew too – that it was time.

“You know,” he said, at last, “she knows you love her.”

“What? Who said anything about love?” Stan smacked the flat of one palm against the side of his wheelchair. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”

The night air was a sudden slap of cold. Dipper shivered as he wheeled Stan out onto the porch, wishing he’d thought to at least bring the old man a sweater. Stan didn’t seem bothered, though, taking a deep breath of freezing, pine-scented air and puffing out his shriveled chest dramatically. “Ahh, that’s more like it. They keep it so hot in that house, you’d think it was a geezer palace.” He craned his neck forward to peer out from under the porch roof, before giving a snort. “Well, this ain’t no good. Push me out on the lawn.”

Dipper complied, following Stan’s directions, until finally, his great-uncle looked around, put his hands on his hips, and said, “Yup, this looks about right. Dipper, get the couch.”

“ _What_? Seriously? You want me to -”

“I’m not dying in any goddamned wheelchair,” Stan snapped, and then coughed, apparently realizing his own vehemence. “Especially not with you bobbing around like a rubber duck in a top hat. Grab us something to sit on.”

Dipper sighed, and snapped his fingers. The broken-down old couch vanished from its usual place on the porch with a quiet clap of thunder, and materialized behind him and Stan instead. Usually, he’d take this opportunity to try to con the old man out of something sweet (and usually get conned himself for his trouble), but if there was ever a night to skip it, this was the one.

Stan’s face split open in a jack-o’-lantern grin. “That’s more like it. Okay, line me up.”

Dipper dutifully pulled Stan’s wheelchair back, and Stan, with a grunt, put the brakes on and heaved himself up out of the seat. Dipper hovered – literally – at Stan’s elbow, ready to catch him or offer support, but Stan leaned all his weight against the armrest of the couch and took the two hobbling steps without any help before dropping heavily into the seat.

“Hah! Not gonna miss these knees much,” Stan said, with a spiteful look at the offending appendages. He reached down and rubbed a knee with each hand, goosebumps rising all along his bare legs, and Dipper grabbed the quilt from the seat of his wheelchair, but Stan waved him away. “Kid, the day I need that thing’ll be the day they put me in the -” He stopped, a look of wondering surprise crossing his face, and then shook his head. “Just – no.”

He reached over and patted the couch cushion beside him. “Come on, sit down, kid, you’re making me dizzy floating around like that.”

Dipper concentrated, and silently relocated the family of ferrets that had made their ancestral home in the underbelly of the couch to a nice tree somewhere in the depths of the forest before he sat down. “So why did you make me drag you and this thing all the way out here? You want the first group of tourists and researchers in the morning to find your body?”

“Heyyy, I never thoughta that!” Stan gave a satisfied laugh. “One last good scare, huh? I could live with that. Not live. Whatever.”

Dipper managed a few chuckles himself. “Classic Stan.”

Stan gave a single proud nod. “You know it, kid. But that’s not why I made you haul me out here.”

He pointed one stubby, crooked finger up towards the top of the treeline. “ _That_  is why.”

Dipper looked up.

The sky wasn’t quite black, in the places where its darkness could even be seen through the spray of stars. It was velvety, Mariana Trench-blue, deep, rich royal purple, even a faintly-glowing green where the light from the Milky Way spilled across it. Stars studded the sky, more than Dipper could ever remember seeing below the atmosphere, more than he could even begin to dream of counting. The Milky Way wove its way through the perfect deep, fading blue, glowing, the spiral arm of their own galaxy billions of miles off in space transformed into a river of light poured thick and brilliant across a sky like infinity.

Dipper only realized Stan was eyeballing him suspiciously when Stan said, “Perfect night for it.”

“This is all natural, I swear,” Dipper said, and Stan shrugged.

“Either way.” He spread his arms across the back of the couch, his back crackling like splitting firewood, and tilted back his head. Bathed in blue starlight and with a genuine, unguarded smile that Dipper wasn’t sure he’d seen Stan wear more than about twice in his entire lifetime, Stan looked – not younger, exactly. Just different. Maybe like someone who had lived a very different sort of life. “You know I used to daydream about sailing on that river up there?”

“I didn’t know that,” Dipper admitted, and Stan’s smile slipped slightly, fading from his eyes.

“Ah, well, that was forever ago.” He pulled his arms from the back of the couch, slouching forward instead, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped where they dangled between his legs and his eyes still fixed on the stars.

The silence was different out here, somehow, thicker, richer, wider. Less suffocating. Less like it was holding its breath for a sound to break it and more like it was waiting patiently for a sound that might never come, for a sound that it might swallow whole. There was a quiet chirping of something that might have been crickets or grasshoppers , the faint sough of wind in the pines, needle-laden branches brushing past one another. Somewhere in the distance, a woodpecker rat-a-tatted against the trunk of a tree, and a squirrel darted across the line of trees just ahead of them with a shivery rustle.

“I’m not ready,” Stan said, gruffly, abruptly, and Dipper was startled to see the reflections of stars shimmering in his eyes. “A hundred and seventeen years and I feel like I wasted most of ‘em.”

“I could,” Dipper started to offer, but Stan held up a hand, still not looking at him.

“No deals, kid.” Stan took a deep breath, his shoulders slumping as he slowly let it out, misting slightly in the chilly night air. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know when to drop the con, cut my losses, and make a break for it.”

Dipper blew out a breath too, looking around the yard at the dark woods encircling them. The totem pole cut a black-winged shape against the stars, the Shack – or the Library, now – made silvery and almost enchanted in the starlight.

“That creaky old wreck of a place is a home now,” Dipper said, without looking at his great-uncle, hearing something suspiciously like a sniffle that told him if he was smart, he’d keep looking away from Stan for now. “Full of people who love each other – and you. And that’s all because of you. If you hadn’t opened it up to Mabel and me all those years ago, if you hadn’t taken care of us -”

The stars swam dizzily in front of him. Dipper cleared his throat, fiddling with his cufflinks. “I don’t call that a con. Or a waste.”

He heard Stan snort out a laugh, but his voice was still thick when he said, “Thanks, kid.”

Dipper shrugged. He didn’t trust his voice to say anything more.

Out on the highway somewhere, a logging truck rumbled past. Dipper sat listening, still staring to his right at the totem pole, until its ghostly echoes died away.

“Tell your sister -” Stan stopped, cleared his throat, but his voice was still rough and cut off abruptly. “Tell Mabel -”

“She knows, Grunkle Stan.”

A shifting sound beside Dipper was probably Stan shrugging. “Well, tell her anyway. Can’t hurt.”

Dipper managed a smile, though it felt fragile, wobbling, like it was prepared to collapse at any moment. “I will, Grunkle Stan.”

“And that Soos kid. Tell him -” There were a few false starts as Stan struggled to find the words. “Tell him he’s a good kid. Always liked him. Hell, give him that stupid fez, I know he used to try it on when I wasn’t looking. And that Wendy. I knew she’d make something of herself. And -”

There was a soft sigh, and Dipper turned back to face his great-uncle. Stan might have just fallen asleep mid-sentence, as he’d been starting to do lately, but for the faint bluish mist gathering from his eyes and open mouth.

Dipper dredged up a smile as his great-uncle took spectral shape in front of him, looking down at himself, and then at the corpse slumped back on the battered old couch. “Hah! Not in my sleep! Take  _that_ , old age!” He stuck out his tongue at his erstwhile body, and a bubble of laughter burst out of Dipper’s mouth before he could bite it back.

Stan beamed at him, and it was and it wasn’t the same Stan Dipper had been speaking to only moments before. He was younger, somehow, though not really young, appearing much as Dipper knew Stan had in his prime – though, it had to be said, with much better hair. His suit jacket was crisp and looked expensively tailored, his smile bright and literally gleaming, though something in his eyes still looked a hundred and seventeen long years old. And –

“I think you forgot something,” Dipper said, and Stan’s soul gave him a worried look. Dipper nodded, and looked pointedly down, Stan’s soul following his gaze all the way down to his bare legs and ratty old boxers.

Stan shrugged, shaking his spectral head. “Well, where am I going next?” he asked, and despite himself, Dipper smiled.

“I think you’ll like it. I hear it’s full of suckers.”

Stan’s grin was broad and sharp and so, so familiar that it tugged painfully at Dipper’s lungs. “One born every minute, huh?” He met Dipper’s eyes, and his smile faded, slowly, his eyebrows drawing together slightly in worry. “You’ll pass on those messages, right?”

Dipper nodded. His cheeks were starting to hurt from his strained smile, his vision blurring and tinting gold in the corners. “I will, Grunkle Stan.”

“Good.” Stan hovered a moment longer, looking at Dipper. Dipper was about to say something just to break the silence when Stan said, “You know, kid. Dipper.”

Dipper looked up from his nervous adjusting of his cuffs just in time for Stan to reach out and ruffle his hair.

“I’m proud of you, kid,” Stan said, thickly, and Dipper suddenly found it impossible to breathe right. “You kids haven’t had an easy ride, but…you did good. And I’m so…so proud of you.”

Dipper tried to muster a smile, and found that he couldn’t. “Grunkle Stan, I don’t want you to go.”

Stan smiled, but it looked pained. He gave Dipper’s hair another ruffle, before yanking Dipper’s top hat down over his eyes. “Keep an eye on that sister of yours, kid. And stay outta trouble, or I’ll come back and spit in all your cereal,” Dipper heard him say, as he struggled to pull the hat up again.

When Dipper finally managed to get his top hat off of his face, the yard was empty. The only light came from the distant stars.

Even though he knew it was too late, that there was no one there to hear, Dipper said, “Love you too, Grunkle Stan,” into the quiet night, and shut his eyes.

In the town beyond, a thousand dreaming minds softly brushed Dipper’s, filling his head with cotton-candy castles and man-eating boots. Somewhere in the trees, a colony of gnomes nested, a cave of manotaurs lay passed out after a raging bender, a secret society of mole-people slumbered in their tunnels.

In the ramshackle old house behind him, safe and sound and loved, six precious minds glittered with sweet dreams.

Somewhere in the treeline, a bird chattered out a challenge, startling Dipper back into the wakeful world. There was a faint grayish tinge to the spectacular sky in the east, a faint grayish light that Dipper knew was the first sign that the world was spinning towards morning.


End file.
